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May 30, 2008

California Researcher Offers HIV Vaccine Database

A professor at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) has created a database to aid HIV vaccine research, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reports (santacruzsentinel.com, 5/30).

Professor Phillip Berman, chairman of biomolecular engineering at UCSC’s Baskin School of Engineering, helped oversee HIV vaccine clinical trials at the school until 2003. According to the article, the trials were not successful in preventing HIV infections, but they did create potentially valuable information that may help other researchers develop an effective vaccine.

“Despite the fact that the vaccine trial didn’t work, a huge amount of useful information was obtained,” Berman said. “Of particular value to researchers are the genetic sequences of the viruses that infected participants during the trial.”

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